


Null Hypothesis

by matchka



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, M/M, Missing Scene, Post-Dark Cybertron, brief mentions of consensual mnemosurgery, copshipping, hurt and angry people poking relentlessly at one another's wounds, oblique mentions of self-harm, post-fistfight ex boyfriends attempting to talk things through like adults and failing miserably, the emotional intimacy issues of damaged individuals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 18:18:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3701801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matchka/pseuds/matchka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You didn’t erase Rewind,” Prowl says. “And you didn’t erase me. Why?”</p><p>In the aftermath of punches thrown, bruised & estranged ex-lovers talk about the past, and Prowl wonders if it's possible to repair what was shattered into pieces a long time ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Null Hypothesis

**Author's Note:**

> help, I've fallen into a giant copshipping hole and I can't find my way out.

“You could have erased me.”

Chromedome looks briefly up, appraising Prowl with careful optics. There’s a dent just adjacent to his faceplate; the paintwork is a little scuffed from the impact of Prowl’s bunched fist. Occasionally, his fingers will trail up, absently tracing the contours of that small, damaged patch. Prowl watches him press, hard and deliberate, against his bruised plating, imagines the dull pain radiating out from beneath his fingers.

He’s surprised Chromedome came today. He’s surprised at himself for asking.

“It doesn’t work like that,” Chromedome says. His voice is curiously flat, almost a monotone.  “You were still there, every day. I’d have had to rewrite our entire history. It would’ve been insanely complicated.”

“But you could have.”

He doesn’t really know why he’s bringing this up, and now of all times. This is an old hurt, a scar that ought to have healed a long time ago. But here they are, in his office, nursing their respective wounds and prodding relentlessly at old ones. The nagging ache of his spinal cables reminds him of the impact, of plummeting to the ground and the utter surprise, because he hadn’t expected it. Hadn’t _predicted_ it.

 “You were different,” Chromedome says, after a time. He’s still prodding mercilessly at his injury, and Prowl wants to reach out, take him by the wrist and force him to stop. It makes his plating crawl just to watch him; the absent, automatic motion of it, as though this small punishment comes completely naturally to him. “I was angry with you. I can deal with angry. And I knew that if I wanted to change things back to how they were, I still had that chance.”

Prowl snorts. “That’s presumptuous of you.”

“Is it?” Chromedome’s  optics are a hazy sunburst behind his visor, but Prowl can see them still. He’s giving Prowl that _look_ , clear despite the impassive armour of his mask: _Don’t pretend. I know you, remember?_

And hasn’t that always been the problem? They’d learned to read each other like a well-thumbed book – young and reckless and endlessly fascinated, intuiting secrets until they’d pared one another down to the bare bones. And when all that was left was the cold reality of the world, and their individual places in it, the enormity of that knowledge seemed frightening. To know one another so well was dangerous. It still is.

(He let Chromedome into his head once. Just once, a great many years ago. Before Rewind. And he recalls the sound of Chromedome’s laughter echoing from somewhere deep inside of him, the gentle burn of needles in his neck, strangely pleasant, and the sound of his own voice, very far away, as he asked what exactly was so funny.

“You’re still the same,” Chromedome said, almost reverently. “All this time, and you’re exactly as I remember you.”

Afterwards, back in the real world, two separate people went their separate ways, and what they’d done together felt strangely intimate – the deliberate prying away of emotional boundaries, mental blocks Prowl had put in place to protect himself, and him not only allowing Chromedome that power but _requesting_ it. Because he wanted to remember how it felt to be close to someone. How it felt not to be alone, if only for a short while.)

“You still haven’t told me why I’m here,” Chromedome says. He’s restless, shifting position every few minutes. The Lost Light leaves in a few hours, and he’s fooled himself into thinking he still belongs there. “A crazy part of me thought that maybe you wanted to apologise.”

Prowl’s mouth contorts into a sneer. “Let’s not pretend you’re an innocent party.” He almost spits it. His doorwings tense, sending a jolt of pain down the length of his spinal cabling. He doesn’t react.

“No,” Chromedome replies. “We knew what we were doing. Both of us.” He draws his hand away from the damaged plating, down onto his lap, and Prowl feels a strange relief. “So if this isn’t about repentance, what is it about? I know you didn’t bring me here to talk about old times.”

Prowl has been thinking about this ever since Magnus gave him that ridiculous, ham-fisted attempt at a public dressing-down. The problem with Magnus is he thinks he’s still relevant. He thinks his opinions mean something. And Prowl doesn’t care if he’s lonely. He cares that he’s _effective_.

But still. Now that Chromedome is here, slouching indolently in the chair opposite like so many times before, he can’t quite bring himself to explain that he wants him to stay. He’s run it all through his situational simulator and come up with several different hypothetical outcomes, because he’s never been able to predict Chromedome accurately. Most of the scenarios end in flat-out refusal. A few end in agreement. The truth probably lies somewhere in between.

He wants to explain that he needs good people – _smart_ people, talented people, people who understand that sometimes, the end justifies the means. And now that Rewind is gone, there’s no reason Chromedome shouldn’t use his gifts. It’s for the greater good. He’ll understand that, if he just looks at it objectively.

But there are other things too. Things he doesn’t want to explain. Chromedome is a walking time-bomb armed with Prowl’s secrets, all the darkest parts of him. All his vulnerabilities. And though Prowl doesn’t believe Chromedome is spiteful enough – or _stupid_ enough – to let all of that into the open, he doesn’t like the unpredictability of it. He doesn’t _know_.

(The only other people that are as familiar with Prowl’s inner workings are the Constructicons, and they’re too stupid to grasp what exactly they’re seeing in there, blinded as they are by their embarrassing hero-worship. They think Prowl is like them. They’ve badly misread him.

Funny, how many people have forced their way into his head. Funnier still how he keeps them all around.)

And there’s a part of him – a small, futile part, one he’s pushed down and buried, one he almost excised completely – that still misses Chromedome.

It’s this part of Prowl that has him rise to his feet, moving a slow arc around the desk until he’s beside Chromedome, hand resting lightly against his shoulder, fingers tracing the delicate patterns carved into the treads of his wheels. Chromedome does not turn to look at him, shoulders tensing beneath Prowl’s touch, but neither does he move to push Prowl away. He must be lonely. He must feel so lost.

“You didn’t erase Rewind,” Prowl says. “And you didn’t erase me. Why?”

For a long moment Chromedome says nothing at all, staring stubbornly into the distance, and judging by the utter rigidity of his shoulders he’s hating every minute of this. But he turns his head, fixing his gaze on Prowl’s face – optics first, trailing down to his mouth and lingering there. Slowly, he leans into Prowl’s touch. His plating is warm and familiar pressed against Prowl’s hands; the angles of him fit so perfectly against his fingers. It’s so dangerous to have him here. So dangerous to _want_ him here.

“I didn’t erase Rewind because he mattered to me,” Chromedome says. There’s something raw in his voice, like it hurts him just to say it aloud, and somehow that’s satisfying. “More than anything in the world, he mattered to me. And you? I didn’t erase you because you stopped mattering.”

Prowl’s teeth clench hard. He doesn’t pull away, and neither does Chromedome, and this entire situation is a slagging mess but it’s happening all the same. Chromedome’s visor dulls and Prowl knows he’s shut off his optics, narrowing his world down to the sound of his own thoughts and the delicate sensation of Prowl’s plating against his own.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t love you,” Chromedome says, quiet now. “But I didn’t _like_ you. And love wasn’t enough anymore. You felt it too. I know you did. The way you looked at me towards the end, like you’d rather be anywhere else. I didn’t erase you because there wasn’t anything left to erase.”

Prowl’s jaw aches. His spine aches, the small contusions and scrapes niggling. He remembers his fist connecting with Chromedome’s jaw. He remembers needles light against his neck. The Constructicons, loud and chaotic as a thunderstorm in his head. The way Chromedome’s optics looked in the dark, exposed and bright and beautiful.

_Love wasn’t enough anymore._

“Why did you bring me here?” Chromedome asks.

Prowl finally pulls his hand away. It feels like losing everything. And that’s fine. That’s good. He’s better like this. More efficient. Magnus was wrong about him. The Constructicons too.

_There wasn’t anything left to erase._

No, Prowl thinks. There wasn’t, was there?

“You should go,” Prowl says. “You’ll miss the launch.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still relatively new to this universe, so my apologies for any errors I may have made. And my apologies for shipping this horrendously dysfunctional pairing so damn hard.


End file.
